"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

05 February 2016

On carrying a cross

St. AgathaFr. Philip Neri Powell, OPNotre Dame Seminary,
NOLA

Paul
writes to the Corinthians, “God chose the foolish of the world to
shame the wise…” and so here we are – the Foolish – to listen
to Jesus say to us just a few days before the start of Lent: “If
anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his
cross daily and follow me.” Fools, indeed. But Happy Fools. IF we
are foolish in the wisdom of the Cross, the wisdom what it means to
haul such a grotesque thing onto our backs and carry it about. Our
Crosses are not daily burdens, large or small; they are death, the
always closing up of one’s life in sacrifice. To carry your Cross
daily is to daily carry the cross of your transience, your
impermanence; your cross is sign of surrender to mortal being and a
spit in the face of despair – one final foolish loogie spat in the
Devil’s eye! Our crosses make us both victim and king. At what
point in Jesus’ life is he both Suffering Victim and Conquering
King?

Carrying
your cross is not a task like washing the car or doing the laundry.
It is not a burden like taxes or daily reading quizzes. Nor is the
cross meant to be a sign of pride or shame, something we find a way
to excuse or explain, or something to brag about. A properly carried
cross rests on the shoulder and pinches the skin just enough, rubs
the bone just enough to keep vivid in our hearts and minds the
ministry we do as we trudge along behind our Lord. We follow.
That’s what we do: we follow. Doing as he does, preaching as he
preaches, teaching as he teaches, healing as he heals. . .dying when
he dies. This is not a job. It is a love. Paul reminds us,
“Consider your calling, brothers and sisters. . .It is due to [God]
that you are in Christ Jesus…” It is because we asked to carry
our cross with Christ that we are allowed to do so.

What
do we carry when we carry our Cross with Christ? Variously, “the
cross” has been described as sin or physical disabilities or a bad
marriage or some sort of addiction, something that unavoidably weighs
on us, makes it difficult for us to walk a straightened path. This is
too small. How will shouldering the “burden” of an addiction or a
mental illness save my life for eternal life? How do I lose my life
to save it if my cross is an inordinate love of Krispy Kreme
Chocolate Filled Chocolate Covered doughnuts!? Our inordinate
desires, illnesses, sins, disabilities – all of that and more
attach to the Cross when we lift it to our shoulders. But they will
all die with us. None, however, will survive our transformation into
the Christ – perfect God, perfect Man.

Jesus
reveals four steps or movements in joining oneself to the Saving
Cross. He says, first, “If anyone wishes to come after me;”
second, “he must deny himself;” third, “and take up his cross
daily;” and, fourth, “follow me.” Knowing what you know about
the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, do you
wish to go after him? If you do, then you deny yourself, renounce
yourself; that is, surrender to an inevitable, mortal death; cease
flirting with the temptation to become God without God. Now, pick up
your death as a Cross like Christ’s and live daily with no fear of
dying alone or without purpose. Freed from the suffocating burden of
dreading death and what comes after, follow Christ! You have
lost your life by embracing daily a sacrificial death. And whoever
loses his life for Christ’s sake will save it.